Chapter Twenty Four-The Wicked Watch

My eyes opened to Jacob’s pink lips against my forehead and his beard ticking my nose. I tried to wake him with a good morning, but my throat was raw, and I could barely suck a breath through it.

As my nerves and senses came back to life, the ache in my joints pulsed with an icy jolt that shot through every part of my body.

When I tried to reach out for him, a cramp took over my hands that bent my fingers into crooked twigs, and it hurt enough that I finally was able to squeak out for help. “Jacob.”

His eyes snapped open, and when he saw my tears, he rose on his elbow, and his shaking hands wiped them from my face. “It’s okay.” He lowered himself over my face and pressed his lips against mine. “You’re okay. You’ll be good as new in a few days. Better than that, I promise.”

A shiver consumed my body, and he wrapped me in the warmth of his arms to stop it as my teeth chattered. “G-g-get m-my b-bag.”

His eyes pinched shut as his head shook back and forth on top of my head. “There’s nothing in there that’s going to make it better. Logan will be here in a few minutes to fix you up.”

The shiver broke at just the mention of his name, and I suddenly remembered what made me this way. “Logan. That motherfucker bit me.”

My trembling hands moved to my neck and when my fingers patted the soft space between my collarbone and ear, a pain so intense it took my vision for a moment consumed me.

Panic set in, and my uncoordinated limbs clawed and fought their way from Jacob’s grasp, and the blankets piled on top of me until I crashed over the side of the bed to the soft carpet.

Jacob’s arms were around me in an instant, and I slapped at him until he let me go. “Get off of me. Don’t you fucking touch me.”

I tucked myself into the corner, and he matched my movements until he was crouched beside me. “Shit!” His hands pushed through his hair. Even with the evidence plain as day on my body, Jacob defended his brother. “Darlin, this wasn’t supposed to be this way. He didn’t mean for this to happen.”

My whole body twitched as I gasped and fought with my tongue to swallow. “Yes, he did.” I glanced to the bathroom door, and his warning about tricks up his sleeve bounced around my ears. “He told me he was going to do it. That son of a bitch.”

Jacob’s eyes narrowed, and his head shook side to side. Logan was the epitome of what a Lycan leader was supposed to be, and even though he knew him best, Jacob couldn’t fathom that he would do something so wrong. “No. No, he wouldn’t do that.”

Beads of sweat dripped from my forehead to my eyes, and he pushed them away. “Are you calling me a liar?”

“No.” He held me close and helped me stand, and his hands rubbed up and down my back. “I don’t know what happened here last night, but marking someone without their permission, we don’t do that here.”

My wobbly legs carried me to my bag sitting on the dresser. “Well, it fucking happened.”

I fidgeted and slapped at the bag until it opened, and I pushed around the piles of clothes until I found my case. After a few flicks of the clasp, it popped open, and I slid a green vial from the band that held them in. “He told me he had a trick up his sleeve to make me stay here.”

My thumb pushed the cork free, and I raised it to my lips as Logan’s voice demanded that I stop. “Put it down.”

I sucked down every drop before he could get to me, then it met the wall behind him and shattered across the floor. “Fuck you.”

He inched closer, and I backed away until my back hit the bathroom door, and my hand encircled the knob. My finger shook at him. “Stay the fuck away from me. Your privileges have been revoked, asshole.”

He spoke to Jacob, but his eyes never left me. “She’s taking birth control. Can you believe that shit?”

My hair jiggled in the air and rose from my shoulders, and a tingle took over my skin. Just being in his presence was enough to bring me back to life, and it sent a wave of anger through me like I’ve never known. “That’s right, you prick. I wouldn’t bring one of your children into this world, Logan.”

The air around us sweltered as my powers restored me, and my feet lifted from the floor. The lamp on the table rocked until my eyes found it, and it flew across the room. The Alpha ducked away, and his tattooed finger pointed at me. “You better bottle that back up, goddamn it. Don’t try any of that shit on me.”

His chest heaved up and down as he circled to my outside to try to contain me. “Tessa, you told me you were in love with another man, and in the next breath, you tell me you want me.” His hand slammed against the wardrobe before he pointed at me. “What the fuck am I supposed to do?”

A growl started in my belly, and it left my throat as a cackle as I flew at him until Jacob’s massive arms contained me. No matter how I tried to fight my way out of his hold, he kept me still against his thigh, and I hissed out every evil word I could utter. “I hate you. I’ll burn your whole fucking town to the ground. Your territory. There won’t be a fucking stone left when I’m done.”

His hands wrapped around my cheeks, and I spat and bit at him until he took me from Jacob’s arms and straddled me on the bed. “I hate you.”

“That’s okay.” He pushed his lips together and shushed me as I continued my ugly tirade. “You can hate me, but you’re all mine now, forever.” 

The little witch inside me laughed her way through my body until she was hysterical. “As soon as I get my strength back, I’ll disappear, and there won’t be anything you can do to stop me. The two of you will never fucking see me again.”

His fingers grazed his mark, and I gasped as a pulsing began between my legs, and every inch of my body went limp underneath him. “See, you can try. But you won’t get but a few miles away before this calls you back to me.”

When his fingers released me from the hate-laced ecstasy. I panted against his face. “I’m the best potion maker in the world. I’ll break this fucking curse if it takes me a million years.”

He was confused, angry, and horrified by my words. It was in that bed that he realized that I wasn’t the good woman he thought I was buried under years of the ugliness life did to me. He looked into my eyes and saw that I am the wicked witch I told him I was.